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<title>Nymphadora Tonks and the Restless Sunrise Epiphany by Meilan_Firaga</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25381402">Nymphadora Tonks and the Restless Sunrise Epiphany</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/pseuds/Meilan_Firaga'>Meilan_Firaga</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A different kind of morning after, Comfort Food, F/M, Mornings, Stress Baking, Worry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:14:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,016</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25381402</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/pseuds/Meilan_Firaga</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not easy being married to a werewolf. There's no handbook for handling the change or the times surrounding the change. Dora's struggling a bit with adapting to the realities of her marriage, but she might just have an idea to get herself on the right track.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Eat Drink and Make Merry 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Nymphadora Tonks and the Restless Sunrise Epiphany</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isilloth/gifts">Isilloth</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The nights closest to the change are hard, just as she’d told Molly they were, but the difficult parts of the nights are nothing compared to the trials faced in the harsh light of day. When the sun rises and all outwards signs of the wolf recede, there’s something in Remus’ behavior that is still more canine than man. He’s skittish and distrustful, flinching away from her touch when she brings a healing salve for his aching muscles. Sometimes he snaps at her, harsh words that he apologizes for with flowers from one of his rambling nature walks later in the day once he’s realized what he’s done. If the nights are hard, the mornings after a change are torment, and Dora struggles to find a way to make those times easier for the both of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s stopped checking on him every morning. He doesn’t appreciate it, and she’s sure that only part of his reasoning is the lingering rage of the wolf he can’t quite shake when back in a man’s skin. He’s ashamed of what he is, and she knew it when she married him. She’s sure the part of him that clings to that shame doesn’t want her to see him coming down from what he thinks is his worst side. She gets it, no matter how much she doesn’t like it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her hair is short this morning, tawny curls as tight as the knot of worry in her stomach when she’s not heard the rattle of the chains he insists on wearing down in their cellar. She’s never known what to do with worry. She’s quick and sarcastic, whip-smart with her words and her wand even if she lacks the precision of other witches, but she’s always been mostly carefree. The worry she feels for this man she loves so very much is foreign even in its increasing familiarity. So, she channels it the way she’s watched the strongest witch she knows do it for her entire life: she bakes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s catharsis in the rhythm as she kneads the dough by hand, sudden understanding as to why Andromeda always did this the muggle way when she pours her worries and frustrations into the push and pull, the pounding and stretching, as she rolls the sticky ball across the counter. She’s overworked it a bit by the time she stops herself to set it aside to prove, but it hardly matters if the crust is a little tougher. She’ll like as not have no one to criticize it but herself. Still, she’s sure if she lets it rise and rest a little longer than she’d planned that it’ll turn out okay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Only, without the dough her hands are unoccupied and the worry is back. The sunrise is turning from pink to golden through the kitchen window and she’s had so very little sleep. She needs the distraction, the means to pull herself away from her thoughts and do something </span>
  <em>
    <span>useful</span>
  </em>
  <span> for a change. There’s a word in the back of her mind that she refuses to acknowledge, and it’s making itself louder the more mornings she passes like this, unable to help her love through the thing he’s dealt with every month since he was a child. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Useless</span>
  </em>
  <span> is as accusing as ignorant, and she pauses with her hands on the edge of the sink for a deep breath. Even in his angriest, most irrational moments Remus would never accuse her of being useless, but she can’t help but accuse herself. Shouldn’t she be able to do something? To offer him some sort of…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s as if a bomb goes off in the back of her mind, the simplicity of the comfort her father always offered when she’d had a rough sleep full of nightmares. It’s not the same— not by a long shot— but she knows that the reality of what Remus goes through each full moon is worse than any nightmares his subconscious has ever conceived. The press is there atop the cabinets, a stretch to the tips of her toes to reach and she has it down on the counter. The bread in the box is just starting to get stiff (the reason she’d been kneading at dough to begin with), but that’s actually better for this plan. There’s a good block of cheddar and a new crock of butter in the cold box, and she sets to with renewed vigor. She’s so focused on this new task that she’s set for herself that she doesn’t notice her husband emerging from the cellar until the sudden appearance of his voice in the quiet of the kitchen gives her a fright.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you making cheese toasties?” His voice is rough and scratchy from the howling and snarls, but the aggression she usually sees in his eyes in the mornings is banked, replaced in part by a very canine kind of curiosity in the way his head is tilted to the side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” she confirms, forcing her body to release the tension it built when he startled her and turning back to the bread she was busy buttering. “My dad used to make them for me when I had a bad night. I thought you might…” She trails off, suddenly self conscious of what she’s trying to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She needn’t have worried.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Remus slides his hands over her hips and around the front of her, the whole warm length of his body pressed up against her back. He has to bend a bit to nuzzle his face as the spot where her neck meets her shoulder. She shrugs against him with a faint giggle, trying to get him to loosen his hold enough that she can keep working. He just presses his face harder against her, breathing in the scent of her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That sounds perfect,” he rasps against the column of her throat. “You’re perfect.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That makes her snort. “Hardly. Took me this long to figure out something I could do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re here,” he insists, swaying them both gently from side to side. “Just that is enough. Toasties are a bonus.”</span>
</p>
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